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Paul Craig Roberts
Institute for Political Economy
Thoughts on the Digital Revolution, Corporate Medicine, and Infinitely Expanding Racism
Thoughts on the Digital Revolution, Corporate Medicine, and Infinitely Expanding Racism
Paul Craig Roberts
The digital revolution is inconsistent with human freedom. The digital revolution gives governments powers to spy and to control that are complete. There is no privacy, and no independence once digital money is the only means of transactions.
In George Orwell’s 1984 Big Brother spied on people via the TV set and publicly placed microphones. We are already far beyond that with publicly placed cameras and face and voice recognition. Even the means of communication such as cell phones spy for the government, as do household appliances for those who fall for “smart appliances.”
Moreover, unapproved words and statements are gradually being criminalized as are statements of truth. The US Constitution is being erased. And nothing is being done about it.
These major matters aside, ordinary people are being oppressed by the demands of the digital revolution and being forced to pay costs of businesses such as customer relations and consumer support.
It used to be that you dialed a phone number and at 3 rings got a real live person capable of handling whatever issue you called about. Now you get eventually a robot that gives you numerous irrelevant options, none of which address the reason for your call. If you have the patience and don’t hang up in frustration, the robot will eventually connect you with a real live customer representative. Allegedly. But what you get is a recording that we are experiencing an unusual number of inquiries at this time. Leave your name and number and we will call you during the next 24 hours.
When you do eventually get a real live person, chances are they are somewhere else on earth and barely speak English with an accent that is barely understandable. Moreover, they do not understand you. Miscommunication continues, and after a very lengthy time–sometimes all morning or all afternoon, you might achieve some resolution of the problem that caused you to call.
If you attempt to correct the problem via the Internet as they recommend, the chances are substantial that their Internet program is not up to the job. For example, I just now attempted to schedule some medical tests online as instructed and the system of which I have been a member for 15 years said I don’t exist.
There you have it. I wasted an entire afternoon with what in the analogue era was accomplish in an easy 3-minute telephone call answered by the 3rd ring.
The young born into this senseless system regard it as normal as they don’t know any different. But for those of an older generation who remember when things worked, it is an indication of total dysfunction.
My conclusion is that the digital revolution only serves corporate profits and Big Brothers control. For the rest of us it is a total disaster.
The young among us will say that without the digital revolution they cannot scroll porn while sitting in a boring math class. But, of course, the cost is the competence of the younger generation. Recently, I was due a water bill refund, but the company’s employees were incapable of calculating correctly the amount of the refund. Finally, it reached a higher level where people could do simple arithmetic .
I am certain that my readers could send me endless stories of their own frustrations and wasted days and hours as an imposed cost of the digital revolution.
Corporate medicine is another modern travesty. Doctors are not independent practitioners following the Hippocratic Oath. They are employees following corporate and Big Pharma protocols designed for profit maximization, the health of the patient be damned. We saw this clearly in the prohibition preventing corporate doctors from treating Covid with cures such as Ivermectin and HCQ, instead requiring injection with an untested substance that has produced enormous deaths and health injuries. My own doctor who treated Covid patients with Ivermectin was called in and told to desist or he would be fired.
Corporate medicine destroys health care because it prevents doctors’ judgments and relates entirely to profit maximization. Corporate doctors, for example, are limited by the corporate “health care” corporation to how long they can spend with a patient, often only 15 minutes, because the point is to accumulate as many charges possible per day with which to bill insurers and Medicare.
If you ask why doctors give up their independence for corporate employment, the answer is that Big Pharma and the insurance companies have engineered it by lobbying. It has been fixed so that doctors in independent practice are paid less than corporate health care companies for the same procedures. Furthermore, doctors in private practice can no longer provide in-house many normal tests.
The American media whores do not investigate this or report it, but it is the fact that money and power has corrupted the practice of medicine in America. Today in “free” America, medicine serves profits.
The other day I read an account that a white person has found him/herself in difficulty with job and perhaps police because the white person is accused by a black of giving a racist look. In other words, the black person claims that the white person looked at him/her/or some other gender racially. This is an indication that in order to protect themselves white people must never look at a black person or they might be accused of a racial look.
You don’t need to email me that this is not the first report of a “racial look” on its way to criminalization. I am not saying it is. It is just the first time I read about it. No, I didn’t save the link, because at the time I had no idea of writing about it. Yes, it might be fake news, but I would wager not. It fits in too perfectly with our times in which everything a white person does, says, looks, or believes is racist.
We hear all about “white privilege.” But white Americans and white Europeans and British are the least privileged people on earth. They are indeed second class citizens as this Asian man reports: https://thewashingtonstandard.com/viral-video-asks-what-are-we-doing-to-white-people/